ConstPtr NULL with waitForMessage

edit

Hello.

I have a function which is supposed to just get one message from a topic, the function looks like this:

std::vector<my_msgs::Person> getPersonList()
{   
    ros::NodeHandle n;
    ros::Duration four_seconds(4.0);

    my_msgs::PersonListConstPtr person_list = ros::topic::waitForMessage<my_msgs::PersonList>(
            "/my_world/persons_available",
            n, four_seconds);
    std::vector<my_msgs::Person> person_vector;
    person_vector = person_list->persons;
    return person_vector;
}

Whereas PersonList.msg is:

Person[] persons

And Person.msg something like:

string name
int age
...

Now when I call the function, the behavior is rather erratic. Sometimes I get the correct results for the first call(s) but after some time I get a Assertion 'px != 0' failed. Googling around told me that the shared_ptr PersonListConstPtr is NULL. And indeed when I do:

if(person_list != NULL)
        person_vector = person_list->persons;

My program is not crashing, but instead nothing happens, because apparently my pointer is always NULL.

Now, the topic is correct, it is published and everything. I have the suspicion that the original pointer is still active and that I can't get hold on it anymore after returning. Can someone help me what to do? I am not very familliar with those shared_ptr. I already tried to get() the pointer but got a segmentation fault.